This invention relates to a sheet feeding apparatus, and in a preferred embodiment thereof, it is part of a printing apparatus.
In certain business operations, such as banking operations, for example, it is necessary to move documents or sheets such as checks, deposit slips, and the like along a track to a utilization apparatus such as a printer or encoder. In one such operation, the sheets such as checks and deposit slips are moved along their lower edges in the track to an encoder which prints or encodes certain data on one side of the checks, for example, while they are moved in the track in printing relationship with the encoder by a feeding mechanism located at the encoder.
One of the problems with prior art apparatuses of the type described in the previous paragraph is they were not rigid enough to withstand the forces encountered at high printing rates, especially when the encoder utilized a wire matrix printer. For example, when the wire plungers of the printer impacted against the printer's platen at high rates of speed, the platen tended to deflect or oscillate. Because the wire plungers advance a distance of only about 1/2 millimeter during actuation thereof, if the platen is in a deflected position at this time, poor printing results.